THE JACOBITE AND MARONITE EUCHARISTIC PRAYERS

the Syriac anaphoras which are in use, or were once used, in the Jacobite and Maronite Churches number over eighty. The most complete list we have is that of A. Raes, who listed eighty. A. Vööbus has subsequently discovered a previously unknown anaphora attributed to Johannan of Qartamin, and there is every possibility that the list will be further extended. A large number of these anaphoras were published in Latin translation by Renaudot, and critical texts of some are available in the series Anaphorae Syriacae. The majority remain unpublished, and some are contained in manuscripts not readily accessible to Western scholars. Here reference has been made to the works listed above, and Cambridge University Library manuscripts Add 2887 (which contains thirty-nine anaphoras) and Add 2917, together with Hayek's translation of some of the Maronite texts.

One of the greatest problems in any assessment of these anaphoras is that of origin and date. They range from the sixth and seventh centuries to at least the fifteenth century. The attribution of some of them gives us a date terminus post quem, but others are obviously pseudepigraphal, and the date is uncertain.